early and above average

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

(the forsythia is blooming / Julie Cook / 2018)

“No one denies what everyone knows, for nature herself teaches it:
that God is the Creator of the universe, and that it is good,
and that it belongs to humanity by the free gift of its Creator.
But there is a vast difference between the corrupted state and the state of primal purity,
just as there is a vast difference between Creator and the corruptor. …
We ourselves, though we’re guilty of every sin, are not just a work of God: we’re image.
Yet we have cut ourselves off from our Creator in both soul and body.
Did we get eyes to serve lust, the tongue to speak evil, ears to hear evil,
a throat for gluttony, a stomach to be gluttony’s ally, hands to do violence,
genitals for unchaste excesses, feet for an erring life?
Was the soul put in the body to think up traps, fraud, and injustice?
I don’t think so.”
Tertullian, p. 11

Since, then, you have been raised with ,
set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is your[a] life, appears,
then you also will appear with him in glory.
Colossians 3:1-4